Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History

The Metropolitan Museum of Art


    • Snuffbox, 1760–70
    Myer Myers (American, 1723–1795)
    New York City
    Gold

    Overall: 1 1/16 x 2 7/16 x 2 3/8 in., 81.3 grams (2.7 x 6.2 x 6 cm, 2 614 troy ounces)
    Purchase, Mr. and Mrs. Marshall P. Blankarn Gift, 1966 (66.102)

    American snuffboxes of gold are extremely rare. On this example, the cover is decorated with a biblical scene, probably based on Samuel 16:77–22. The harp player David, sent by his father to assuage King Saul's anguished mind, appears before him with offerings of bread, wine, a donkey, and a kid. Myer Myers, the maker of this box, was a New York silversmith who also lived briefly in Norwalk, Connecticut, and Philadelphia. He is listed in the 1786 New York Directory as chairman of the New York Silversmiths' Society.

    Related


    This work has been published in the Museum's Bulletin or Journal. These articles may or may not represent the most current scholarship.
  • Koeppe, Wolfram. "Chinese Shells, French Prints, and Russian Goldsmithing: A Curious Group of Eighteenth-Century Russian Table Snuffboxes." Metropolitan Museum Journal, Vol. 32 (1997).
    JSTOR | PDF
  • Gómez-Moreno, Carmen,and Thomas Hoving. "Gold." The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, v. 31, no. 2 (Winter, 1972–73).
    JSTOR | PDF
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  • Snuffbox, 1760–70
    Myer Myers (American, 1723–1795)
    New York City
    Gold

    Overall: 1 1/16 x 2 7/16 x 2 3/8 in., 81.3 grams (2.7 x 6.2 x 6 cm, 2 614 troy ounces)
    Purchase, Mr. and Mrs. Marshall P. Blankarn Gift, 1966 (66.102)